Retreating

I haven't written much lately.  I think because my emotions are buried somewhere so I can't find them.  I get tired of being tired and sad.

I suppose we don't vent about the good things, right?  How often does someone call you to say, hey! I'm having the BEST day.  Maybe we should do that more!

Someone in an ALS group posted this:

I've talked about this before - how with a long term illness - I imagine even with a chronic but not terminal illness - you experience these stages of grief and loss all the time.  A friend, whose husband died of cancer several years ago, sent me an article called "Anticipatory Grief."

I thought this was such a great way to think about this sense of loss.  We sit and wait for the next thing to happen, the next change.  It's a sh*tty way to live.

So instead of sitting around and waiting and moping and crying (which I still do...) - we try to grab on to the good things, the things that keep us afloat.  Little life jackets, I guess.  The things that keep us from sinking in to a deeper depression, that keep me from falling apart on a daily basis.

Luther's ok.  Last night he just puked forever.  He'd done this back in July and ended up in the hospital twice.  They couldn't figure out what was up.  Then we had two months of no throwing up and BAM - last night it was awful.  I was in my room (we don't sleep together - another loss...) and I didn't hear him.  All of a sudden I heard a weird sound and ran out.  Man oh man!  He was a mess.

My poor guy.  Can't move.  Sitting straight up, puking down his shirt.  I felt so awful.

The other night, he said he was calling for me for about 45 minutes.  I didn't hear him.  He was in bed and needed to get up to pee.  I mean really.  What an awful feeling.

Maybe time for a baby monitor??

Luther's usually such a trooper.  He's my rock.  I try to be one for him too but I'm more like a pebble. I get tired easily.  Worn down.  I know my mood affects his.  I've been retreating more and more and I know this is really bad for our relationship.

I think, at the heart of it, is I'm scared that if I let myself feel how much I love him, the hurt of seeing him so helpless will be too great.  If I just keep a wedge between us, I can protect myself from that level of hurt.

Which, I know is a big fat lie.  That wedge also prevents us from feeling happy too.

That's the thing with burying negative feelings.  You don't get to pick and choose which feelings you hide.  You end up burying all of them and NOT feeling anything.

In order to feel love and happy and joy, you have to experience the sadness and the hurt.  Years of therapy taught me this :)   So even though I start building a wall against feeling the bad stuff, I generally find a way to stop building it too high and I share those feelings:  here in this blog, with friends or family, with Luther.  I've learned that sharing this burden of sadness creates space for light and happiness.

I do think it's important to share the good stuff too.  I've read through some past blog posts and it gets really old really fast - the same concerns, complaints, whining, venting over and over again.

How do you get out of it, though? How do you process those feelings? It's a fine line between wallowing in self pity and recognizing true grief.

Life moves along, though.  I'm not the only one with issues.  I need to be a good friend, a good sister and daughter.  I need to be a better caregiver and more important, wife.

This is all too profound for a Monday morning.  I think it was the throwing up -- it got me to pondering about all this stuff.

We're actually leaving for a little vacation today - off to South Dakota.  He's never been.  I think Wall Drug and the Corn Palace will make me feel super happy!